25Mar16

Two arrested in Germany in connection with Brussels attacks: report

German police arrested two men in connection with Tuesday's terror attacks in
Brussels, German media Spiegel Online reported on Friday.

In the area of Giessen, a town in the German federal state of Hesse, German
police arrested on Wednesday evening a man, who had received two suspicious
SMS on his phone on the same day of Brussels attacks.

While one SMS contained the name of the suicide bomber Khalid El Bakraoui, the
another message only one word "fin", the French word for "the end".

According to the report, the later message was evidently posted just three
minutes before Bakraoui set off bombs in a metro station in Brussels.

The investigators are now trying to clarify how this man might be associated with
the Brussels bombings on Tuesday.

Another arrest occurred in the German city of Dusseldorf after a special task
force of German police took Samir E. on Thursday afternoon.

As Spiegel Online reported, just as the Brussels suicide bomber Khalid El
Bakraoui, Samir E. was also apprehended in last summer by the Turkish
authorities at the border area between Turkey and Syria, as they were suspected
of wishing to take part in the Syrian conflicts on the side of the Islamists or
having taken part.

Both were deported in the same plane to Amsterdam where they had begun
their trip to Turkey.

The German authorities are now questioning whether the two had a closer
acquaintance or were even journeyed together.

Two suicide bombers who set off explosions at Brussels airport and a metro
station on Tuesday have been reportedly identified as brothers Khalid and
Brahim El Bakraoui and have direct links with the Paris terror attacks last
November.

The twin attacks on Tuesday have killed at least 31 people and injured more
than 300 others.

[Source: Xinhua, Berlin, 25Mar16]

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